One of the scandals is that we’ve had millions of people marching through the streets calling for no war in Iraq, but we haven’t had millions of people marching in the streets calling for freedom in Iraq. Nobody’s marching in the streets on behalf of Kurdish liberties. The interests of the liberal dissidents of Iraq and the Kurdish democrats are in fact also our interests. The more those people prosper, the safer we are. This is a moment in which what should be our ideals—the ideals of liberal democracy and social solidarity—are also materially in our interest. Bush has failed to articulate this, and a large part of the left has failed to see this entirely.

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“…the ideals of liberal democracy and social solidarityÃ³are also materially in our interest. Bush has failed to articulate this…”
Bush hasn’t failed to articulate this he has strenuously avoided talking about it. There is zero chance the Bush regime will allow anything other than a puppet state in Iraq once this is “over”. One only has to read Project for a New American Century and The National Security Strategy of the United States of America documents to realize that democracy is not on the books for Gulf states – great rhetoric to get the people behind a war but never going to happen. If they allowed the Iraqi people democracy Iraq would quickly cease to exist as the Kurds and Shi’ites would both vote with heir feet very quickly. Even if that didn’t happen there ism, from the US’ perspective, far to great a chance that an anti-american, pro Islamacist government could be elected.
This war has been almost 30 years in the planning starting with Kissinger’s article “Seizing Arab Oil” appeared in Harper’s magazine and the subsequent coalescing of the neoconservatives around that doctrine. This war has nothing to do woth WoMD or Saddam’s treatment of the Iraqi people. It has everything to do with the growing power of the Euro vis a vis the US dollar as well as the growing might of China. It is not about grabbing the oil reserves for american oil companies, or for use in the US. The US can not control middle east oil simply through the normal channels of capitalism. That is simply being the highest biddder for theoil does not exert control over it. The US needs to control the taps because it is mideast oil that fuels Western Europe (hence the Euro) and Asia, specifically China and Japan.
The neoconservative hawks see physical control of the taps as an absolute must for future US security and they are the ones who are in control of policy in Washingtom today. Anyone who thinks it is about anything else is fooling themselves – maybe they don’t want to admit how duplicitous their government can be.

One of the scandals is that we’ve had millions of people marching through the streets calling for no war in Iraq, but we haven’t had millions of people marching in the streets calling for freedom in Iraq. Nobody’s marching in the streets on behalf of Kurdish liberties.
That’s not a scandal, that’s called “faulty logic.”
People in the U.S. protest because we’re a democracy, and members of that democracy, and thus we hope to influence our government.
The left has long been supportive of the Kurds and the people in Iraq (as have a few on the right), but the argument “how come you’re not marching against Saddam?” fails to recognize the way a democratic process works — in fact, the same democratic process that we’re going to impose on Iraq by force.
The right only supports Iraq when it helps them go to war; the left has been calling for an end to the pointless sanctions (and the establishment of an independent Kurdistan, by some) for years and has been ignored.
–Kynn

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